27 October 2014

The Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party (RSDLP) held its founding
Congress in 1898 in Minsk, Russia (all
nine delegates were arrested). At that time, and in the early 1900s, no
distinction was made between “communists” and “social democrats”. Yet the
underlying division was already there, as we will see from the Lenin’s 1905 book, “Two
Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” (download of
extensive compilation linked below).

In 1899 the prominent German
Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein wrote “Evolutionary Socialism”. Both Rosa
Luxemburg (in “Reform or Revolution?”, 1900)
and Lenin (in “What is to be Done?”, 1902)
came to the defense of the revolutionary path. They opposed Bernstein’s
reformism and what Lenin dubbed his “economism”.

In 1900 Lenin founded the
magazine Iskra (“Spark”).

In 1903 the 2nd
RSDLP Congress took place in Brussels and London. It resulted in the split
between the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, and the Mensheviks, led by Julius Martov.
After the 2nd Congress, control of Iskra passed to the Mensheviks (from Issue No. 52) and Lenin
thereafter refers to it as “the new Iskra”.

Following “Bloody Sunday” (January 22nd1905) a revolution against the autocracy of the Tsar broke out in
Russia. One consequence was the institution of a commission to create the
“Duma”, the limited Russian parliament, which eventually came into existence in
1906.

Russia
1905

The new situation was considered by the Bolsheviks at the 3rd RSDLP Congress in May, 1905.
The Mensheviks were meeting at the same time in a “Conference” in Geneva.

Lenin wrote “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic
Revolution” in June and July of 1905,
immediately after the Congress and the Conference. This book is to the Third
Congress as “One Step Forward, Two Steps
Back” is to the Second Congress. But it is also different, because the
circumstances are different. In the “Two Tactics” Lenin refers to and
continuously compares the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks, the Congress with the
Conference, and the old Iskra with
the new Iskra.

The two tactics (those of the Bolsheviks and those of the Mensheviks)
were both supposed to be attempts at responding to the new circumstances. These
are the circumstances of bourgeois democracy, just then being set up for the
first time in Russia, and the question was: What should the proletarian
revolutionaries do? To understand Lenin’s true answer, you must pay close
attention.

The circumstances are arguably similar in some respects to South Africa
at the present time. Joe Slovo refers to the comparison in his 1988 pamphlet on
“The South
African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution”. We may
say, with Slovo, that ours is not a bourgeois democratic revolution, it is a
National Democratic Revolution. But the question is still: What should the
partisans of proletarian revolution be doing in such a period? Studying this
revolutionary manual of Lenin’s can help us to find answers to this question.

In 1914 most of the national constituents
of the Second International opted to support their national governments in the
terrible inter-Imperialist slaughter known as the First World War. The Bolsheviks and some others, notably some
comrades in South Africa, refused, and opposed the war totally. Only after that
time did the permanent distinction grow up between the class-collaborator
“Social-Democrat” parties on the one hand, and the Communist Parties on the
other.

Lenin was consistent. The 1905 book “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the
Democratic Revolution” is already a sustained blast against the vacillating
sellout liberals, and in favour of decisive revolution led by the proletariat.
He finishes up with the resounding rhetorical question: “Dare We Win?” In the
particular circumstances of 1905, this also meant “Dare we remove the Tsar and
make a republic?”

What is a “class collaborator”? Is class collaboration the same as “class
alliance”? Absolutely not! Class collaboration is a servile abdication whereby
the representatives of the working class subordinate themselves to the
interests of the ruling (capitalist) class. The working class is very familiar
with such collaborators.

Class alliance, on the other hand, is the necessary politics of revolution. The
working class must be independent and it must be autonomous, but it must also
have allies from outside of its ranks. In South Africa such allies can be
peasants and small business people, professionals and intellectuals, but not
the principal oppressor, which is monopoly capital. Class alliance serves to
prevent the isolation of the working class, and serves to split the forces
available to the dominant part of the bourgeoisie. Class alliance, as
unity-in-action, can also secure vital material gains and tactical victories
for the working class.

From 1905 only twelve years had to pass in Russia before the
two-revolution year of 1917. Many documents exist from that period that could
be included in a larger “classics” collection. We will select only two, and
then use our penultimate part for the revolutionary year, and the final part
for the post-revolutionary situation.